Which of your collections are you [INAUDIBLE] ten year
old contemplating death?
What was [INTERPOSING VOICES]
I think it's called "On Turning 10."
I think it's in this poem book, Picnic, Lightning.
But I'm--
No, I think--
Or it's The Art of Drowning, I think.
Art of Drowning.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Oh you have one.
Go ahead.
I'm curious if you reached a point where you totally
trust your voice when you finish your poem.
Or do you have a third person--
a third eye, I call it.
And that I like to turn to to try to poem out on.
And then, for some reason I hear it with a new ear
as soon as I'm reading it to someone else.
I can read it to myself and get to a certain point.
Right.
No, I don't read it to anybody.
I don't try it out on anybody.
I don't show it to anybody.
I show it to my wife sometimes.
And she's very--
I mean, she has a very good critical eye
in terms of grammar and lines.
And she just-- like the sentence is too long-- very, very
good practical advice.
But I just do it by myself.
I just-- I look at books of poetry
where the book opens by thanking 10 other poets for having
looked at this manuscript.
It's just like quilting at that point.
[LAUGHTER]
I always thought poetry was a solitary activity.
It's what you go off in the shack,
and you pull your cowl over your--
[LAUGHTER]
--around yourself, and light a scented candle,
and whatever you have to do.
But for me, it's always been a--
this comes out of my brooding romantic genius period.
[LAUGHTER]
It's always been an intrinsically solo activity.
So I've never taken a workshop-- only because they weren't
around basically when I was vulnerable and susceptible
to that kind of thing.
So I just I think I know enough so I can just hear it myself.
Yeah.
Because I mean, I'm writing, and I'm writing it to a reader.
So it's not like I'm committing this act of literature and then
later, oh look, let me show it to someone
and see what they think.
I'm showing it to someone as I'm writing, would be the answer.